It's caused me to no longer be interested in Square Enix's famous franchise

There was a time when I would actually look forward to the next instalment in Square Enix’s long-running RPG franchise, Final Fantasy.

And then something snapped when this series made the generational transition between consoles and birthed XIII. What should have been a celebration was the ultimate betrayal for many fans. And yet we still somehow managed to survive the ordeal.

But that wasn’t the end. It’s was only the first part of a trilogy nearing completion.

Those who actually enjoyed this upside-down direction are fanatical followers of the Final Fantasy brand or simply enjoy being disappointed for laughs.

Was XIII truly the beginning of the end for this flagship? It certainly started to mark the end of my patience.

Regardless if you were pro-XIII or against, the first XIII game must have succeeded some market projection because a sequel, XIII-2, made its may over to North America in relative short order. While it didn’t fix all of my issues, it certainly helped numb my acceptance that this series has been denying its death for a number of years (but not by much.)

The addition of towns, monster hunting, a time-travel/parallel universe story were all well and good. But I never much liked Serah, so you can understand my enthusiasm when it came to playing an entire game with her as the main lead. The other lead, Noel was equally unlikable. And the big bad? Totally laughable.

All of that aside, I still enjoyed XIII-2 significantly more than XIII.

And then came the ending.

Spoilers aside, it was a lot darker than most Final Fantasies give you – an unexpectedly pleasant surprise – but it also contained a certain three-worded phrase a Final Fantasy game should never be ended with ended with.

“To Be Continued.”

It’s also an unwritten rule and I’ll never understand why Square Enix made this decision. You just don’t do these things!

And now we have Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII to anticipate, a standing ovation for letting the series move on past XIII’s limbo. Although I’m still going to look at the game confused as all hell for its unnecessary emphasis on breasts.

Why would you do this?

…And then you try accepting Caius as a legitimate threat.

Are you that desperate for sales, Square Enix, that you go out of your way to make a formal explanation during a Dengeki Online interview at a Premium Community Event?

This is why I can’t be bothered to take anything post-FFXII seriously.

I realize that this series’ writing is lacklustre but never have enlarged bodily features been used as a keynote in the series before.

It’s not like this is the first localized title from Japan to include this feature though.

In fact, this practice of “fan-service” has been around for the better part of several decades so it’s not like the developers have invented cold-fusion with this feat. Even Dragon’s Crown got flack for its particular artwork, even though it was never intended to be viewed as the game’s one-and-only selling point.

“Goto: Yes, her chest jiggles. Since everyone can decide what costume she’ll wear, you can make sure it does (laughs). By the way, since Lightning swings her arm when you change her weapon in the menu screen, that’s a recommended action for sure-fire jiggling! To see it even better it could be useful to equip a small shield. Look forward to it!”

I can guarantee I won’t be.

It’s been nice knowing you, Final Fantasy. I’ll stop being a stick in the mud when we return to Ivalice.